Blog from Kaushik Lele which helps you learn Marathi through English.
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To make you an independent speaker, grammar is thoroughly taught here. Try reading posts sequentially, as rules discussed in one post are referred in later posts.
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Vowels, Consonants in Marathi and their pronunciation

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Friends, In the beginning we will write Marathi in English script. So as to enable you to read it, we will decide some conventions for it.

Note that in some cases there is some difference in pronunciation when capital letter is used in stead of small letter. e.g n/N ; t/T ; d/D
Go through it once. You may not remember all pronunciation now. But as and when you will use it in sentence, come back to these rule and check it. After few days you will remember it automatically.
Also I have mentioned Devanagari symbols. So later when we will start using Devanagari. you can refer this chart to get the sound for each symbol.

Vowels

In Marathi, vowels are added to consonants. Most of them are easy to pronounce, ऋ is slightly challenging. Marathi vowels retain much of their original Sanskrit pronunciation making some of them different from their Hindi counterparts. A notable example is औ (au), pronounced as owl in Marathi but as Oxford in Hindi. ऑ (Ao) is a special vowel used for loan English words, and is pronounced as in doctor.

Many Marathi consonants come in three different forms: aspirated, unaspirated and retroflex.

Aspiration means with a puff of air, and is the difference between the sound of the letter p in English pin (aspirated) and spit (unaspirated). Retroflex consonants, on the other hand, are not really found in English. They should be pronounced with the tongue tip curled back. Practice with a native speaker, or just pronounce as usual — you'll usually still get the message across.

Devanagari

Transliteration

Equivalent/Comments

क

k

as in skip.

ख

kh

as in
sinkhole.

ग

g

as ingo.

घ

gh

as in
doghouse.

ङ

G

as in
sing. Used only in Sanskrit loan words, does not occur independently.

च

ch

as inchurch.

छ

Ch

as in
pinchhit.

ज

j

as injump.

झ

jh

as in
dodge her.

ञ

nY

as in
canyon. Used only in Sanskrit loan words, does not occur
independently.

ट

T

as intick. Retroflex, but still a
hard t sound similar to English.

ठ

Th

as in
lighthouse. Retroflex

ड

D

as indoom. Retroflex

ढ

Dh

as in
mudhut. Retroflex

ण

N

retroflexn, as in grand.

त

t

does
not exist in English. more dentalt,
with a bit of a th sound. Softer than an Englisht.

थ

th

aspirated
version of the previous letter,notas inthanks orthe.

द

d

dentald.

ध

dh

aspirated
version of the above d.

न

n

n in man, pan

प

p

as in spin.

फ

ph

as in uphill.

ब

b

as inbe.

भ

bh

as in abhor.

म

m

as inmere.

य

y

as inyet.

र

r

r in rat

ल

l

as inlean.

व

v

as in
Spanishvaca, between
Englishvandw, but without the lip
rounding of an Englishw.

श

sh

as inshoot.

ष

Sh

almost
indistinguishable retroflex of the above. slightly more aspirated.

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Thank you for your effort!Linguistics is my hobby, and I have had a desire for a long time to "bite" one of modern Indo-Aryan languages. I thought about Hindi or Punjabi, but incidentally got inspired by Marathi. Surprisingly there is almost nothing on Marathi. I mean not some word lists or standard phrases for tourists. Your blog is really valuable.

LangLover

I am a bit confused with the rule 2 in your lesson above:>>‘n’ in English word “much”<<Is this a typo?

And thanks for bringing mistake to my notice. I have updated it. It should be "munch".

Would you mind sending me a mail on learnmarathifast@gmail.com I generally send update to "students" of my blog whenever I add new lesson. Also knowing about your mother tongue and motivation to learn Marathi will also be interesting.

Hi Kaushik, thanks for the work in your blog. I noticed that one of the new swar, representing the sound in the English "bat" is missing, though you have incorporated that for "ball". http://www.omniglot.com/writing/marathi.htmCould you add that?

First, THANK YOU for your blog. It's awesome for me. I'm french, and I decide to learn Marathi because I love so much Swami Samarth Ramdas's Dasbodh. THE KING BOOK for me. I do read this book everyday. But, all books of Swami S.Ramdas is not translate in english, and many saints spoken in Marathi. I think to Nisargadatta Maharaj, Ranjit Maharaj, Shiddharameshwar Maharaj. The good news for me it's that Marathi langage has a pronounciation for vowels very easy for a french native speaker. Good continuation ! Anthony.

You are welcome Anthony !! Thanks for detailed comment. You reason to learn Marathi is really interesting. I will like to know more about your Marathi learning through mail.Can you please mail me at learnmarathifast@gmail.com

Hello, Thanks Kaushik ! No problem, we can share that together. My mail is anthony.klopffer@gmail.com for information. Like that, you know that it's me in your box mails. . Here, I learn Devanagari, it's gymnastic for my brain to jump of roman letter to Devanagari and to write. I has studied a few sanskrit, I am surprised of few difference in prononciation between Marathi and Sanskrit. I learn sanskrit because I thought that S.Ramdas's Karunshtake was in sanskrit but in analysing the form of letters I sought my mistake.

Thank you so much. I used to speak Marathi more than 40 years ago, but I have lost touch. Your lessons are so good, they help a lot. As you pointed out, I have problems with the sounds of cha and ja. I saw one lesson with the possessive forms which explains this, but it would be good to see a list of very common words with these sounds and learn how to pronounce each. If we could use a modified translation in writing the sound in English, it would be even better. For example cha and cha'.

Vanakkam KannanJi,It was nice to read your comment. You have given a nice suggestion of two symbols (cha and cha'). But looks like it is almost difficult to change all blog lessons to specify the transliteration in this way. But I have provided YouTube video fir every lesson so a learners should be able to listen correct pronunciation.

I would like to know more about your Marathi learning and feedback about my blog. Can you please mail me at learnmarathifast@gmail.com

Thank you very much for this page! This is the only chart of Marathi letters that I have found where the English words chosen actually help me! So many other websites just use transliterations of Indian words or names.

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About Me

Kaushik Lele. My mothertongue is Marathi. I like to learn new languages and teach others. And I know English, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi.
I am a voracious reader of various kind of books. I live in Mumbai and Pune (in Maharashtra state of India). I am a young software engineer.